


The Road to Hell

by Lilili_cat



Series: JL [1]
Category: Naruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-12 04:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19221142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilili_cat/pseuds/Lilili_cat
Summary: Drabble-series fic all set within the same messed up world sort of inspired by Injustice (from JL).





	1. The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

**The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions**

 

A jutsu to see potential futures. His genius little brother had spent weeks designing it, babbling about convergences and branching and parallel streams until Hashirama's head spun with it all. He humored his little brother though, agreed to test it out as any fond elder brother might.

It is a mistake.

The first thing that Hashirama sees after he walks into the swirling arrays of colors and lines vaguely shimmering into an cosmic tree is his little brother striking a fatal blow on Uchiha Izuna. He sees Izuna stagger, sees him speak out against peace even as he lay dying, sees him refuse the help that he would provide, sees him give his eyes to Madara, sees him die and...

Oh.

He sees Madara destroy himself with grief and ravage the world in his pain.

He sees Madara _ruin_ himself, and he can't abide it.

No, he wishes. Stop. Not Madara.

So he thinks as he steps away from the swirling colors and looks Tobirama full in the eye, suddenly serious as he's never quite managed in the past.

(This isn't the past, though. This will be the future, and he will do _anything_ to prevent it.)

“Promise me, Tobirama. Promise me that you will not strike any lethal blows on Uchiha Izuna the next time we meet on the battlefield. Promise me you'll hold back!”

His little brother nods and says, “yes, Anija,” like the good little brother he is.

Hashirama smiles and relaxes. Tobirama has never let him down in such matters, and he doesn't doubt his beloved little brother this time either. Madara will be safe from loss and insanity.

A week later, Hashirama is engaging Madara, trying to make the his friend see sense when he hears a cry of pain from behind him.

Izuna! He thinks, whirling around to where he knows his brother and Izuna are locked in combat, but as he faces them...

It's not Izuna staggering, dying from the lethal blow to his chest. It's--

Oh no.

Oh no no no no no.

Tobirama has never let him down, and he didn't that day either.

Hashirama feels his heart break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really sure right now where I'm going with this. I've got a plan, but I'm also not great at sticking to plans so...
> 
> Considering some really messedup-ness.


	2. What is a Dream But...?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The consequences begin.

**What is a Dream But...**

 

Once upon a time, Madara had dreamed of peace. He had met a like-minded boy by the river and planned a village where young children would not be sent off to die in a meaningless war. He had called that boy his friend until clan and filial duty broke them apart, and he had to put away his childish dreams and grow up for kin and clan.

And now, the world is at peace, and it is an awful, terrifying thing.

His old friend is at the helm of it, sending first emissaries bearing seeds to all the neighboring clans and demanding they all lay down their weapons. Those emissaries dropped their seeds when the clans relieved them of their heads, and the seeds sprouted and grew, watered by blood and death. The flowers that grew out of them poisoned the very air, the vines that sprung forth pierced chests and ripped out hearts as easily as any blade, and the trees...

Those are the most frightening of them all. Tall, dark, _ominous_...sucking up chakra and life-force as easily as other plants drink water. And unlike the flowers and vines, they are immune to fire. No jutsu seems to affect them, and they keep growing and eating and eating, draining clan after clan of hearty, healthy shinobi no mono and leaving behind bleached skeletons and empty husks with glassy staring eyes.

Peace came rather swiftly after that, and Madara can only watch in horror as he and Izuna and their clan were the last bastion remaining, the last holdout against Senju Hashirama and his terrifying plants.

He'll give in, of course. He can't doom his clan and doom Izuna with it. But he also won't settle for this alien “peace” that he does not recognize, this notion that bastardizes the very ideal he had reached for so long ago.

He is an Uchiha, with the finest sight in the world, and he can recognize a cage and shackles when he sees them.

He is a shinobi no mono, and if he can't fight in the open, then he'll fight in the shadows.


	3. It's Never Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peace is not enough.

**It's Never Enough**

 

The world is at peace, and the old dreams he had are now reality. The world is at peace, and Hashirama _should_ feel content, _should_ be satisfied...but he's not.

Why did it take Tobirama's death for his eyes to be opened to the world's true nature? Why did it have to take his brother's sacrifice for him to realize just how naive, just how _useless_ his methods were?

Peace cannot be gotten through soft words and endless pleas.

He had begged Madara daily for a chance, just a single chance, to prove their dreams real, to enact that plan they had so long ago. He had sent countless letters to the clans, softly but firmly worded, full of reason and conciliation and compromises.

Each time, Madara had rejected him to his face. Each time, his letters had been sent back burnt or unopened.

And still he tried.

He saw the future, and he averted it by forbidding Tobirama from harming Izuna. And now Tobirama is dead.

(He is to blame. His actions are the only catalyst, the only difference between a future in which Tobirama lived and the future Hashirama lives in now.)

Tobirama died, and Hashirama finally realized—if he wants peace, he'll have to _make_ everyone accept peace.

And if the Nara, the Yamanaka, the Akimichi, the Hatake, the Inuzuka, the Shimura, the Sarutobi, the Hyuuga, the Aburame, the Hagoromo or even the Uchiha or his own Senju stand in his way...? He'll destroy them. He'll destroy the world to stop them from destroying themselves, and he'll build a monument out of their funeral pyres to that first sacrifice he made all unknowing.

He succeeds. His flowers remind them of their vulnerabilities, his vines their weakness and his trees stand both guardian and warning to those who would stand against him.

They are all brought to heel, all those clans and the Uchiha too.

His and Madara's dream is a reality.

And it is not enough.

Why isn't it enough?

But before he can think on it any further...Madara disappears.

Madara disappears, and there are whispers of rebellion.


	4. The Plants Whisper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hashirama may or may not be so powerful...but the fear of not knowing is there all the same.

**The Plants Whisper**

 

They stole away in the dead of the night, he and Madara and a handful of other defectors. They stole away while the mad Senju slept, and Izuna is still not sure they have gone far enough from him to be safe.

Shinobi no mono they are, and the life of a shinobi no mono is never safe, but it was a danger that Izuna knew almost as an old friend. A life fraught with checking one's back outside of the compound, but only occasional wariness within.

Now, there is no more safe compound to hide in. For who can hide from the master of plants?

Every shrub they pass is a potential spy. Every drift of pollen wafting on the air an enemy agent. The very grass they travel on a betrayal waiting to happen. Izuna must even watch the food he eats with suspicion, if it plant based, because who knows the extent of the mad Senju's powers and the range of his influence?

It is exhausting the way Izuna has never been tired before in his life. And he can see that exhaustion mirrored on Madara's expression too.

How far is far enough? Where can they stop and regroup and strike back at Senju Hashirama?

If it were just Izuna, he would have already done so, threat to his life be damned. He created this monster they all now run from, it is his responsibility to slay it.

Oh, Madara will never blame him. His elder brother is too loving, too loyal, for that. But Izuna can see it in the faces of their other companions, of the distant relatives that followed, of the Uzumaki woman who stepped into their path as they were leaving and insisted on joining them in rebellion.

Izuna had been suspicious at first. The mad Senju's own fiance...but Madara accepted her. “Her clan, too, suffers, under the yoke of such oppression. Let her join us. We will need all the help we can get.”

It is she that provided the clue as to where the madness started. “My would-be brother-in-law's death is the catalyst. My once-fiance's thoughts turn more and more to one who is no longer there, and he tires of taking the slow path to his dream. He would make sure there is no more sacrifice of younger brothers.”

And Izuna...Izuna can't really understand it. The mad Senju should have just revenged himself on Izuna and left Madara and everyone else alone.

But he has never been able to understand THAT particular Senju. The one he understood as only a beloved old enemy can is dead, and if he has to give his life as penance while taking down the man's elder brother, he will.

Anything to keep _his_ family safe.


	5. From Another World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only Mito keeps her cool.

**From Another World**

 

It's a near thing, and Madara wants to cry. Despite all their efforts, despite the days they walked, Hashirama still found them.

“Betrayal, my dear?” his once-upon-a-time-friend asks Uzumaki Mito, who stares at him with hardened eyes and a carefully blank face. Madara can only admire her composure.

He has none of it himself. “We dreamed of peace, Hashirama, but not like this! You can't force it on people! That isn't peace. It's tyranny!”

But Hashirama has not listened for months, and he isn't listening now.

“I begged you for peace every time we faced each other, and nothing ever came of it. You were never devoted to it, and you would have let it die on its vine like a fruit you've tired of.”

“That's not true!” Madara screams. “I only wanted to wait until the right time. My clan--”

His once-friend roars and vines burst from the ground to wrap around Madara, choking him mid-sentence. “When was the right time, Madara?” the Senju asks, his eyes alight with vicious green light. “Was it ever going to be 'the right time'? Tobirama _died_ and still you didn't--”

The vines tighten around his throat, and he's clawing at them, desperately trying to wrench them off and breathe. He can see Izuna straining to reach him, but another set of vines sprout from the ground and attack his little brother, and even Izuna's katon is not fast enough to burn them all. There are too many, they move too quickly and...

He tries to call a katon, but he has no air. He tries to hack at the cords around his throat, but they tear his kunai away from him. He tries to reach for his gunbai, but a set of roots wrap around him, binding it against his back and...he's going to die. He's going to die, and Izuna and the others will be left to face Hashirama alone when it is _Madara's fault_ that this happened, Madara's fault that he didn't have the courage to go against his clan--

“Fuin! Summons from another world!” a woman's voice—the Uzumaki princess's—rings out.

The pressure suddenly eases, and Madara falls to the ground, hacking, coughing, choking on the air he suddenly has available to him. He can hear Izuna do the same, and relief wafts through him, weakening his knees and sending him tumbling to the ground.

They will live. They will live from whatever Mito did. Whatever--

A new voice, an awfully familiar voice, interrupts his thoughts. “What is going on?”

And Madara can only look up in horror as Hashirama—as _another Hashirama_ \--steps into his line of sight. Another Hashirama and...

Their Hashirama is equally pale, equally slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

“Tobirama.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome the canon!Folks.


	6. His Brother's Regard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon! Hashirama and Tobirama right before they end up in alt!World.

**His Brother's Regard**

 

“Go Tobirama.”

His tentative hand, so close to curling around his brother's shoulder, freezes mere moments before contact and curls away as if an invisible wall of ice suddenly surrounded his brother.

“Anija--”

Hashirama shakes his head, his hand wearily covering his brow, as if he can't even bear to look at him. His voice when he speaks is heavy, pained, _tired_ , and Tobirama aches at knowing he's the one who put it there. He, once again, is the reason for his brother's disappointment and his brother's pain. “No Tobirama. I don't blame you. I understand that it was a battle, and we are enemies, but...I need to be alone right now. Just go.”

Despite his brother's words, it is so very clear to Tobirama that Hashirama does, indeed, blame him.

He swallows, his tongue thick in his mouth. “I understand.”

And truly, he does. Uchiha Izuna is mortally wounded by his blade, and because of it, his brother's hopes lay in ashes. While a portion of him is happy that one more enemy of the Senju clan has been eliminated, the bigger portion regrets his role in destroying his Anija's dreams.

Why is it he only ever seems to add to his big brother's burdens? Why must he trade his brother's happiness for the clan's security?

If only he can do something about it, make amends. Tobirama is certain that he can negotiate treaties with the other clans, but...His brother has only ever had eyes for Uchiha Madara.

That includes Tobirama himself.

It is a point of bitterness in him, and what _wouldn't_ he do to have his brother look at him like that? To see him just once, to put _their_ clan first instead of always looking towards the Uchiha...

But he is shinobi no mono. There is no use pining after the impossible, and he firmly sets his desires aside. He must focus on family and clan and duty.

Dreams...dreams come after duty is done.

 _I'm sorry_ , he thinks, as he quietly leaves his brother alone in his office. _I'm sorry I can't be what you want. I'm sorry I can't be--_

\--a better brother. A more faithful little brother who can bring about his elder brother's dreams.

But he'll try.

* * *

An hour later, Tobirama stands at his brother's door, his fist raised hesitantly against the wood, waiting to knock. He's infusing his chakra, casting it out, and his brother's is streaked through with rivulets of pain, despair darkening the swirling tendrils.

And he put the pain there. He was the one that put it there, and now he must invade his brother's privacy despite direct orders and...His brother is not yet ready to see him (perhaps never will be ready to see him), but this matter cannot wait any longer. Hashirama is clan head, and it is Tobirama's _duty_ to report to him news of such import.

Even though he caused his brother's pain. Even though his brother isn't ready yet to see him.

He steels himself. Duty comes first.

And so he opens the door and--

The world swirls by in a bright flash of lights and chakra. He whirls around, instinctively calling his water up to the fore, ready to strike at the enemy that must be attacking his brother in his moment of weakness--

\--only to stop in astonishment.

It's his brother, but only not. Because when has his brother _ever_ looked at him like that? Like Tobirama is _Madara_ and--

“What is going on?”


	7. His Beloved Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hashirama is not prepared.

**His Beloved Brother**

 

He's so distracted when he sees Madara, so infuriated by the man's betrayal (yet again), that he forgets the others.

Not Izuna, of course, because how can he forget about the man who killed his brother? He may have ignored him once, but never again, not after what he wrought. And if there's a dark part of him that wants Izuna to die right here and now, wants Izuna to liquefy into a soup of nutrients and to have those nutrients feed his plants...well, no one needs to know.

(It's Hashirama's fault, but it's _Izuna's_ blade that stole his Tobirama from him, his strike that tore out Hashirama's heart.)

No, distracted as he is by Madara, he forgets his once-fiance, and how dangerous she can be with her seals.

“Fuin! Summons from another world!” she calls out, and he all but whirls to face her, his vines at the ready.

It's too late. Whatever she's brought forth is already forming. Whatever she's called is here, and he can just make out two shapes emerging from the wild tangle of green, blue and red chakra.

He takes a step back, his hand already beginning to form the snake hand seal. He will absorb the chakra of whatever it is that forms, if need be. And the chakra is peeling back, revealing--

Hair as white and fluffy as the fur of a snow rabbit from the northern reaches of Mizu...red crimson eyes—beloved eyes, eyes he'd thought he'd _never_ see again—narrowed in perpetual suspicion and wariness (eyes that fly wide the moment they catch sight of him), skin unusually pale and always needing to be protected from the harsh rays of the sun, a tall, lean body (a runner's body, suitable for the speed for which its owner is known for)... 

His hands fall uselessly to his side, and his vines crumble and weaken all around. 

The happuri is missing (because it's on a shrine back in the compound, and he keeps it shined and polished every single day), the clothes are the informal civilian wear the man adorns when he's not facing enemies, and he's completely unarmed, but in front of him is—is-- 

“Tobirama,” he whispers. 

He reaches out a trembling hand, needing to touch the apparition, needing to see if the man, his beloved _otouto_ is real. 

(Please let it be real. Please. He's missed his Tobira _so_ much, and there's so much he wants to tell him, so much to share with him.) 

But as his fingers grasp out, another figure steps forward and pushes Tobirama, pushes _his_ Tobirama, roughly behind him. 

His eyes narrow as his attention is now fixed on a man who looks eerily like himself. 

(He's not an idiot. He may not be as clever or research-minded as Tobirama, but he can follow the seeds of logic as well as anyone can. And with the appearance of someone who may as well be his twin and the reappearance of his dearest Tobirama, with the knowledge of just what Uzumaki Mito is capable of...) 

“So,” he says, “she will dangle something before me that I can't refuse. Is that it?” 

The man—himself—looks confused. “Who are you, and why do you look like me?” Then the other him spies Madara coughing weakly on the ground and turns toward him, livid. “What did you do to Madara?!" 

At those words, Hashirama feels a fury that he's never felt before fill him. 

He had been willing to send the man--obviously either himself from the past or someone like him from a different world--back with advice, with admonitions to care for his brother and not make the mistake he had made. But this...this... 

How dare he. 

His precious little brother stands right behind him, looking at him with those same adoring eyes that his Tobirama once had. 

And that Hashirama only looks to Madara, just like he once did. 

And this Tobirama will die just like his did. 

No, he won't allow it. He can't let it happen again. 

(He won't lose another Tobirama. He won't allow his precious little brother to be sacrificed again. This Hashirama doesn't deserve him—and neither does he. He must keep this Tobirama safe.) 

And if that means taking him away from the Hashirama who doesn't look at him and will eventually sacrifice him...then that's what he'll do. 

He'll keep his Tobira safe the way he should have all along. 


	8. Unevenly Matched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My attempt at action. Ugh.

**Unevenly Matched**

 

“Mokuton: Living Cage!” shouts the man who looks unnervingly like himself (and apparently has the same abilities—this does not bode well).

Hashirama tenses as vines—as his _own_ vines—erupt from the ground to circle around them, as if they were the sharks his brother had pointed out to him once when they visited Mizu. He had been awed by the creatures back then and amused by Tobirama's almost childlike excitement, but he felt no such joy now.

Somewhere back behind them, beyond the living wall of vines that separated them, Madara had been gasping for breath on the ground, the telltale mark of chords—of vines—about his throat, and Mito had stood looking, bound with those same vines. The man who had done such a thing could only be an enemy, and a dangerous enemy indeed, with the same skill at the Wood Release as Hashirama himself. But he is a master of the mokuton as well, and he will not stand to see the people dear to him threatened.

His hands flicker into the snake seal. “Mokuton: Blade Storm,” he responds, growing giant heavy flowers heads and urging them to expel sharpened swords like so much pollen bursting forth.

Unfortunately, his enemy anticipates the move and more vines burst forth to choke off his flowers at their stems. But before they can descend upon him, he feels his little brother rush past him and put himself directly in front of the reaching green spears.

“Suiton: Water Dragon!”

The vines are swatted away by the rush and roar of dense water, propelled backward by the long sinuous column of blue. They both fly backwards from the force of the crash, and Hashirama can see his brother leaping from it, unusually light and graceful without his usual blue armor--

His eyes widen.

His brother is not wearing his armor!

He takes in the sight of his brother, in his light shirt and hakama, completely unarmed and unarmored in his casual-wear, and he curses himself for an idiot. Of course Tobirama wouldn't be in his armor...it had been hours after the last battle, and Tobirama always maintains his armor and weapons directly after.

Which means he's now facing a foe with the same abilities as Hashirama, but with nothing to protect him from the heavier jutsus.

He's angry at Tobirama, but he still loves him.

_If he's hit in that..._

On the heels of that thought, his enemy doppelganger calls out his next attack, “Mokuton: Wood Dragon!”

The blood drains from Hashirama's faces, and he leaps forward with a cry.

The Wood Dragon is one of his more powerful techniques. Tobirama would never survive a blow from that.

His brother springs out of the way of the large dragon, just barely dodging the strike of its sinuous armored tail, but Hashirama can already see him tiring from its chakra-drain.

Quickly he flickers his hands into the appropriate seals. “Mokuton: Wood--” but before he can finish, a pitcher plant blooms beneath him, its colorful lips sealing around him.

No.

With chakra in his fist, he punches at the flower walls desperately, but it's like they are formed from solid steel, and he barely makes a dent.

A choked off scream from the outside, and his blood runs cold.

Tobirama. No.

“Mokuton: Wood Dragon.”

He'll explode this with his own wood dragon. He'll explode it and drain its chakra until he's free of his vegetal prison.

His brother is outside. Mito is outside. Madara is outside.

His dragon spirals out of the tendrils of his green and blue chakra, mixing and forming until a great dragon presses against the top of the pitcher.

It needs more pressure, more chakra, and Hashirama feeds more and more into it, the dragon growing and expanding until it bursts the flower into a storm of petals, a deadly hanafubuki that it then laps up greedily as it spirals out.

Hashirama leaps after it, his hands already forming the next seal he'll need--

\--only to stop at the sight in front of him.

The man—his doppelganger—is gone. The vines are retreating, and he can see Madara ready his gunbai and Mito her seals. And behind them is--

His eyes widen.

Izuna is...healed? Izuna is...okay?

Tobirama hadn't killed him then! That means there's still a chance for--

At the thought, he realizes the one thing he _doesn't_ see.

Tobirama! Where is Tobirama?

He spins around frantically, whirling to the spot he'd seen his brother fighting the dragon.

The clearing is empty, devoid of everything except a large splatter of blood.

But before he can think on what that means, he's struck from behind, falling into the blood-stained grass as darkness clouds over his eyes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continues in the Next Installment


End file.
